Magician's Touch (Deadly Touch book 3) Chapter 40: 40: Hope

Read chapter 40 of Magician's Touch (Deadly Touch book 3) by Deb E Howell on NovelPedia.

A couple of their regular restaurants were closed. Permanently, apparently. Nuisances. They returned to one at which they had already racked up quite the bill already. Braph didn’t have money, well, none in his pockets anymore, and he wasn’t about to send for a purse from Duffirk. Luckily, few places would close a tab on a man who could destroy their whole business with the wave of his hand, or stop their hearts with a thought. People had been talking. They stayed at the restaurant longer than Braph would’ve liked, while Orin downed four breakfast servings, scoffing porridge, toast, eggs, and boiled pears. While Braph joined Orinia in jocular comments on their growing boy, his mind replayed the incident in the garden, when Orin had smashed one of Braph’s flying devices. Could some of the micro-organism laden medium have landed on Orin? Certainly, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility. A splash didn’t guarantee an infection, and a healthy appetite in a growing boy really was nothing unusual. Did Braph, as a father, have cause to worry? As a father of an Immortal child, especially one now coming into his full strength and speed, he shouldn’t have had anything to dread other than butting heads with his own child as the boy’s body’s maturity outpaced that of his brain. He shouldn’t have. But did he? If Orin had been infected, his body wouldn’t drain its life as an Aenuk would. It would fight it, and put up a better fight than a Karan might, he was almost sure. But could Orin fight it to the point of curing himself? Surely, if he was fed well enough. The other option was to ask Orinia for some of her blood, but what would that really achieve in an Immortal? A Karan could use Aenuk blood to perform infinite magical tasks. An Immortal already had both magics, and yet they could not perform anything beyond healing quickly, running fast, lifting heavy things, and living a very, very long life. Braph sighed. He knew what Orinia would say when he asked if she would supply some blood, and he was right. “Why?” *** Jonas was woken by Garnoc shaking his shoulder with furtive looks past Jonas to see if he was also disturbing Llew. With that in mind, Jonas rose and accepted Garnoc’s help with his prosthetic and trousers without fuss and they slipped outside as silently as possible, leaving those who had broken their sleep to watch over the rest of them in the night to catch a last few minutes of sleep. Jonas stood on the porch, leaning into one crutch, looking out over their lives now. The hard, wooden chairs beneath the Ajnais, the Gravinator, the leather straps … The bonfire still smoldered in a blackened mess much more reflective of Llew’s struggle than the jovial mood her friends had tried to provide her. Still, the laughter and chatter echoed in the space. On balance, what would Merrid and Ard think? Merrid, despite a good-natured acceptance, would want the mess cleared as soon as possible. Jonas could picture Ard’s satisfied smile over the coming together of the farm’s new inhabitants. The farmer would still exude disapproval at Jonas, though, for letting Llew hurt so much for him. Indeed. That would remain a sticking point against Jonas’s welcome here, despite what Llew might think. Didn’t matter, though, did it? What mattered was that Llew had a safe hub, a home, here. And Jonas had his home in her, wherever she should land. Rowan came around the corner of the house, a syringe in hand. “You look well this morning,” he said. “I feel pretty good.” Until Rowan’s comment, Jonas hadn’t noticed just how much better he felt compared to previous mornings. He felt close to normal; none of the general fatigue that had been encroaching deeper each day prior. “Excellent. I don’t know enough about Braph’s bug to know if you’re able to fight it at all, but we must, at least, be getting you to a better baseline each time we heal you with the purified magic versus the whole blood. That is progress, and it buys us time.” Rowan gestured to the porch benea